


An Art of Lying

by orphan_account



Category: Rome
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-23
Updated: 2011-04-23
Packaged: 2017-10-18 14:16:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/189740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pullo about Vorenus, all through S1</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Art of Lying

Titus Pullo is a liar, and the only time Vorenus was wrong about him was when they were in Egypt, and he said he was bad about keeping secrets. It’s bloody false, because Pullo can seal up tighter than Hades when it’s important, but Vorenus is never going to know that, as the most important secret he’s ever kept is about his friend’s cheating wife. Personally, he can’t blame the girl as such—she barely knew her terse and supposedly dead husband, and the embrace of her brother-in-law must have offered comfort she was sorely in need of. But he knows Vorenus won’t see it like that, stickler for black and white morals that he is, and he’s right, technically. But he loves his Niobe more than any damned thing on Gaia’s earth, didn’t so much as touch a woman the entire eight years he was away in Gaul, so Pullo kills the bastard who lead his friend’s wife astray and keeps his mouth shut. The baby and the girls are more than innocent, Niobe was grieving and in no condition to make sound judgement, and though poor Lyde may have cursed her sister with all the Furies, she doesn’t deserve to lose both her sister and her husband at once. What’s more, he doesn’t know if he can keep the truth from Vorenus forever, but he knows he will put off seeing that wounded, broken look in his friend’s—his brother’s—eyes for as long as possible.

He doesn’t spare thoughts as to why he’s so adamant about sticking around Vorenus, like mud to a riverbank, or paint to a house, which is odd, perhaps, because Pullo is always thinking, wondering, imagining things his friend would not waste precious energy on. Everyone else probably supposes he is a useless leech, sucking up charity wherever he can find it, but the truth is that ever since he met Vorenus on that search for the golden eagle, parting from him gives the impression of a pit sunk deep into his stomach, makes him irritable and feverish, like Egyptian sand has burrowed under his skin and will not leave, like he is deathly thirsty and cannot drink. It is simply another secret he will have to keep, another truth he will omit, and Pullo does not dwell on it, the fact that he felt better marooned on a godforsaken strip of sand with Vorenus then he did when seeing his friend wrapped in a magistrate’s white robes. He does not think of the near-constant drunken stupor he fell into when he killed Eirene’s lover and became a murderer for hire, when Vorenus declared Pullo dead to him. He loves the girl, yes, but her wails were quiet in comparison to his friend’s scorn.

It isn’t until the terrible secret is discovered, Niobe is dead and burning on a pyre, and Caesar’s demise has the republic-turned-empire close to falling about their ears that Pullo feels completely useless next to his friend. He thinks on the past several years and the unbreakable sense of attachment, the effect Vorenus has on him, as if a rising bubble of air and light is caught in his chest. He realises that he loves him, in a distant, worshipful, and altogether pointless way; even if he had not so loved Niobe, Vorenus had never shown such inclination towards any man. That night he prays to the gods with water in his eyes and blood staining his skin, for the safe passage of Niobe and the children in the underworld. Pullo sends his young wife to another room for temporary safekeeping and sits with his friend until Vorenus stops attempting to toss him out, damning him and bidding that he let him mourn in peace. He is a strong man, still something of a mean old brute, Pullo thinks fondly, but even this dark hour of the night can’t hide his tears.

Pullo keeps a hand on his shoulder, and Vorenus weeps.


End file.
